Crude booms, safety lags

Our opinion: Amid a crude oil boom, state and federal regulators need to heed local voices urging action on public health and rail safety.

Federal and state regulators trying to grasp the downside of the booming crude oil business need look no further than the Capital Region to get a sense of the trepidation over the rail and oil industries’ continuing lack of regard for public safety and health.

The oil industry has its foot jammed on the gas to the point that the landscape around it is blurred. Boosted by a flood of shale oil, the U.S. has become the world’s top producer of crude oil and liquids separated from natural gas, according to Bloomberg News. And the rail industry is riding this wave, hauling more than 15,000 carloads of crude oil and petroleum weekly this year, half again as much as it hauled in 2006, says the International Business Times.

With this boom has come increased threats to public safety and health. There have been eight significant accidents, including the Lac-Megantic, Quebec, disaster last summer in which 47 were killed and a small downtown was flattened.

Downtown Albany is ringed by tank cars filled with potentially explosive crude; high-hazardous trains whip through many of our communities. The surge through the Port of Albany and on the Capital Region’s freight lines has grown to 2.8 billion gallons.

The federal Department of Transportation proposed new rules in July to make the crude oil industry safer. But bureaucracy is slow, and the rail and oil industries are behaving as if they know it, squeezing in every under-regulated moment on this dangerous crude oil wave. According to an Associated Press report last week, the industries are urging federal regulators to give them up to seven years to make the crude oil industry safer.

And change won’t speed up without efforts like that initiated last week by Albany County Executive Dan McCoy and Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, urging Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx to use his authority to:

• Limit speeds on high-hazard trains passing through local cities.

• Order rail companies to immediately provide more advance information to local responders.

• Order local companies to only accept shipments from retrofitted or newer, safer models of tank cars.

• Require crude oil be treated to make it more stable and less flammable before being shipped.

• Mandate new safety standards even on trains with fewer than 20 cars.

Environmentalists also stepped up last week, accusing the state Department of Environmental Conservation of inadequately safeguarding residents around Albany’s port. They said a full environmental review of crude oil operations is needed, which DEC, surprisingly, has not required.

Powerful voices from our area are straining to be heard over the engines of the rail and oil industry. We urge regulators to tune in.

PAUSE is a grassroots group of individuals who have come together to promote safe, sustainable energy and fight for environmental justice. We engage the greater public to stop the fossil fuel industry’s assault on the people of Albany and our environment.